Reviewer: Sonja Maria Neef
I love to solve complex challenges.
That's probably why
I became the founder of an innovation agency more than 15 years ago.
I have been developing innovations since then.
Here's my story:
Imagine the following situation --
I am invited to one of the leading car manufacturers in Germany.
I won't name names.
There are many people sitting at the conference table.
Important people and I.
It should become a key moment in my life.
This is about real innovation. It's about my idea
that could change the whole industry.
I am excited and curious. My mood is going up.
Suddenly a company internal expert raises his hand and says,
'Mr. Behrendt, you don't really think
there will ever be a computer in the car, do you?'
Believe it or not but that's a true story,
and I have heard many of these things in my professional life.
Too many!
There is one more:
'Mr. Behrendt, you don't really believe
that you can sell shoes over the Internet, do you?'
However, computers somehow appeared in cars
and selling shoes over the Internet
turned out to be quite feasible.
Since the Internet still is quite a hot topic,
I asked myself:
Why is it so damn difficult
to develop innovations?
At that time I believed that it was all about
developing the best product or being the best engineer.
Then success would come.
'Mr. Behrendt, our customers don't want that.'
'You can't make money with that' or 'This won't catch on'.
Today I know
that innovation isn't just
developing the best product or having creative ideas.
An innovation is only an innovation
if it is successfully introduced to the market
and is accepted!
In order to be really innovative,
one needs in practice different approaches
not imposed on us by the trade press.
Let's start from the very beginning.
What would you do if you had 10 million euros?
Strange question, isn't it?
Here's the obvious answer: You'd take a vacation, right?
Please raise your hand if you would do the same.
(Laughter)
This question forces you to make a decision
and to find out
what you really want.
I was asking myself again and again till I realised the core thing.
I realised that
permanent vacation is not a solution.
One gets to the heart of the matter at some point.
So as a devoted engineer I wanted to build the coolest company,
work on relevant tasks together with a really cool team
and thus actively shape the future.
As you can probably imagine, having a dream like this
is pretty easy, yet it's tough to get there.
I've been in the business for a long time, learning a lot.
Today, we actually work for
the most innovative companies in the world and have a beautiful office
and a top team.
Some of them are here today.
But in all this time I have also learnt
what does not work.
The more experience I gain,
the more I realise that something goes wrong
when it comes to innovation.
So what goes wrong?
I can state that 90% of all companies
are not innovative at all!
Maybe they were in the beginning
but somehow they lost it while growing or expanding.
I'm not the only one with this view.
There are many Harvard, Sturdy and Grey as well as Gallup studies.
I will consider 4 points now.
Firstly, 90% of all earnings do not come from innovative products.
90% of all new product launches fail.
90% of all companies want changes.
90% of all employees only do what they were ordered to
or want to quit.
Nevertheless, all companies say: 'Innovation is the strongest driver
for sustainable value-based growth!'
Strange. Something is wrong when it comes to innovation.
So what is the solution?
Why do all these numbers look so damn bad?
Do we need better methods? Do we need to invest more money?
Do we just have to try harder?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
I think we have a completely different problem.
We have lost the connection.
We go to work but we somehow don't get fully involved.
Very few are involved emotionally today.
This seems to apply to most people:
Work is only about earning money -- a burden which must be carried.
'Work-Life-Balance.'
We separate our work from our life.
Shouldn't work be the best part of our lives,
since we invest so much time in it?
I call it 'Professional Dilemma'.
What is it?
Here's something I hear a lot:
'Mr. Behrendt, you do not really believe these stories!'
I hear such things quite often:
'Hey Lars, don't take it personally!
It's nothing personal.'
But you know what: I do take it personally.
Every idea, every innovation, every prototype
that I have developed with my team.
I am a 100% part of it.
I believe in it. I want to believe in it.
I want to fight for it because it is important to me.
What is this phenomenon:
We think we are not allowed to show emotions in our professional environment?
If we are honest, we all take it personally.
When things that are important to us are not understood, accepted
or simply rejected,
we have learned not to show it anymore.
This is called 'professional distance'.
Here is a nice example: The boss phenomenon.
This is a concrete example of the professional dilemma
which sums it up well.
Let us have a look at these two nice people.
Nothing wrong, right?
This one is the boss!
Question: Raise your hand if you know someone
who is not happy about their boss,
or better someone who quit their job because of their boss?
(Laughter)
69% of employees faced, at least once, the situation
when they were having a bad supervisor,
but 97% of managers consider themselves to be a good manager.
Now guess what happens when the door is closed
and I talk to bosses about their employees.
What topics are discussed, in your opinion?
Right, bosses complain about the same things,
only from a different perspective.
But seriously now. Something is going wrong here!
I mean completely wrong!
Somehow this seems to be a learned/programmed behaviour.
If so many people face this problem,
then something is wrong for sure.
When I drive home on a Friday, I hear on the radio:
'Finally weekend - finally you've made it!'
On social media life starts again suddenly:
'Thank God it's Friday!'
Our shared pictures: We are admiring the sunset,
we are on the beach, we are partying, yet no photos at work.
Not so 'likeable' now, isn't it?
Why don't we talk to our bosses
and tell them what is really important to us?
Why don't we, bosses, talk to our employees
and tell them what bothers us?
I am convinced this type of communication,
this learned behaviour is usually attacked by many critics
and by people who talk a lot without actually doing something,
yet very rarely by so-called 'doers'.
In your opinion, what is the proportion
of 'doers' to critics?
If you were paying attention, you should know the answer.
Here we go again: Our 90%.
What is the key to innovation?
Is it education? This is what we hear everywhere.
This is all about education at the university.
Education must be a key to innovation.
With my experience I can reflect on it.
The most qualified employees
don't always provide the best input into innovation.
On the contrary, the higher the rank (and the level of education)
the more often a sceptical attitude prevails --
a kind of anti-innovative attitude.
So with all these insights in mind: What is the key to innovation?
Actually, we all know it already.
It is one of our first experiences in childhood.
Back when we still were creators of our own development process
and learnt how to walk, talk or cycle
as children, as discoverers!
At that time we were convinced we could discover something new
because we experienced it ourselves,
e.g. that we fell down a few times, stood up again
and suddenly could walk.
With children one still finds this GREAT combination
of courage, resilience and curiosity.
A perfect combination for innovators.
All these experiences are still deeply anchored in our brain.
So basically, everyone knows what it means to be innovative
and also how much fun it is.
Someone is innovative if they still know after following a career path.
The right question should probably be:
How can I regain it?
I am totally convinced
that it's about that potential within us
to unfold our personality. This is how we become innovative!
In collaboration with the brain researcher Dr. Gerald Hüther,
we talk about such topics today
as drive, passion, finding your true vocation,
things that are important to me personally --
terms that are rarely used in the professional environment.
'Very unprofessional. You can't do that.'
Really?
I believe it's high time for us to create
a new definition of being professional.
How do we get these emotions back in relation to our job?
This is too complex for sure to be explained in a short talk.
In my view, new business professionals are not hiding
behind a professional business mask or suit.
Privately and professionally, they speak and act in the same way.
What's more important, they do a job that really means something to them.
Again, in our projects we actually get
the most innovative input from the foundation.
In other words, from ordinary employees
and rarely from top trained specialists.
I have observed that these people
are not data-driven, security-oriented or even worse --
focussed on the shareholder value.
You can feel that their work is really important to them.
They show real commitment and go all-in.
You can clearly see that in their eyes as well as results.
"Sounds good, I want that. Where is the 10-step plan?"
We hear that a lot.
The bad news: It doesn't exist.
The good news:
I will bring up three things which can really
boost your personal development of potential.
And if you try these things
and use them again and again, you will notice
that this opens up completely new possibilities and ways.
Point 1: If I do not know what I should stand for,
if I am not aware of what I am here for,
then I won't have any creative ideas.
At some point, I should recognise a problem in my world
and start to actively overcome it.
This is the basis for any effort.
Perhaps it is essential to find this motive for yourself
and to be convinced it is worth the effort.
When people have such a motive,
they don't need a motivation or creativity trainer.
They are all fired up.
Find out what is really important to you as a person.
We do this by developing a personal mission statement.
For us this is the basis for each new hire.
This is why we no longer concentrate exclusively on specialist knowledge.
We try to find out what is really important to an applicant as a person --
not only professional goals but also personal ones.
What are their values and dreams? What is their passion?
What do they want to achieve? What would they do with 10 million euros?
Point 2: Change your inner attitude.
Sounds logical, but it is the hardest thing you can demand from somebody.
It can't be done from the outside.
How can we change our inner attitude
from "this is impossible" to "I like impossible things the most"?
We change attitudes with new experiences!
How does it work? We have developed so-called innovate Fridays for us.
On these days, we let our employees work on things
that are really important to them only.
In such a way, we develop together
an idea into a prototype.
It's a cool feeling when you suddenly realise
that your whole business life does not have to be the same.
You can re-connect with those things that stimulated you to explore
when you were a child.
You become curious again.
What else might happen? Then suddenly the innovator is back.
You have awakened the innovator inside.
This is how extraordinary products
and ideas have been created by us.
Point 3: Leadership
I am convinced that leadership in traditional sense
leads to an anti-innovative corporate culture.
What we need is a completely new understanding of our work relationships.
I believe in leadership based on reciprocity.
First of all, stop depersonalisation.
When problems occurred in our team in the past,
the culprit was always found quickly:
Project manager, boss, techies ...
It is so easy to point the finger at someone
instead of just starting with yourself.
What if we started looking for solutions ourselves in the future
and we, the bosses, saw our job as a service provided
instead of a privilege.
The main problem in companies:
Nobody dares to confront someone with a higher rank
if something is wrong.
Bosses, be on the same level with your employees!
Also, employees, be on the same level with your bosses!
We are just humans with similar goals in life.
You should consider this: If you want to be innovative, successful, rich,
famous or whatever,
stop throwing yourself into methods, tools or sales techniques.
No matter what others tell you, start concentrating on yourself
in order to find out what is really important.
Let us bring emotions back into our companies!
Real emotions, personal emotions. Your emotions.
Please do not hide behind the curtain of professionalism.
Show what is important to you. Show that YOU are really important.
Show what you don't like,
take it, rebuild it and make it better!
This is real innovation!
What you believe is possible is what's possible.
Not what others tell you.
With these people we can also use all the new methods
and apply fancy innovation stuff.
New work, Agile, Scrum, Sprint -- whatever you want.
With people like that, everything really works.
With people like that, you can shape the world of tomorrow.
That's what I have learned.
With people like that, almost anything goes.
I love working with this kind of people!
So ask yourself: What kind of people do you want to belong to?
I invite you to the 10% of people
who create, who act, who really want to make a change.
Be innovative!
Thank you!
[Applause]